America, chortle the elite media, was “ostracized” by G20 leaders, led by Germany’s Angela Merkel, on immigration and other issues, notes Irwin Stelzer at The Weekly Standard. Yet this is the same Merkel who “welcomed 1 million largely Muslim immigrants — many with no identification, some with forged passports, most in need of all the welfare state could provide.” This while President Trump seeks “to bring illegal immigration into the United States to an end, and to prevent terrorists from entering.” Says Stelzer: “Better to be ostracized for that than to follow Merkel’s policy of putting her citizens at risk.” So “the next time Vladimir Putin gets stroppy,” Europe’s leaders should “replace the emergency auto-dial White House number” with someone else’s.
Security desk: Preventing the Rise of Isis 2.0

Iraq has claimed victory over ISIS in Mosul, after a battle that Max Boot at Commentary notes lasted longer than World War II’s Battle of Stalingrad. But “rumors of the organization’s demise have been exaggerated before and, sadly, may be exaggerated today.” A new West Point report shows that ISIS carried out 1,468 attacks in 16 Iraqi and Syrian cities after they were liberated from ISIS. Says Boot: “That’s a lot of attacks for a group that has supposedly been defeated!” Which suggests ISIS “will now focus not on controlling territory but, rather, on undertaking terrorist attacks” — including “spectacular terrorist operations in the West.” Preventing the rise of ISIS 2.0 will require Washington “to embrace nation-building” and “a significant US presence in Iraq going forward.”
Historian: New Amelia Earhart Theory Is Phony

A widely publicized newly discovered photo reportedly suggests aviator Amelia Earhart and her navigator, long believed lost at sea in 1937, survived and were taken on a Japanese military ship, the Koshu Maru, to prison, where they died in captivity. But Clive Irving at The Daily Beast says the theory is “seriously undermined” by available evidence. Indeed, the Japanese author of a 1982 book on Earhart interviewed surviving crew members who said no one on the Koshu Maru ever saw Earhart, “alive or dead.” Nor was there any mention of her in the ship’s log. Besides, “the last thing the Japanese needed” at the time “was to inflame American opinion by murdering the world’s most famous woman.” All evidence still suggests Earhart, “after a desperate search for land,” ended up “out of fuel, ditching into the ocean and then plunged . . . to the bottom.”

Foreign desk: Trump Got Putin Wrong on Cybersecurity

Part of President Trump’s problem is that “he sometimes misunderstands things,” suggests Leonid Bershidsky at Bloomberg. And that’s precisely what happened when Trump said he and Vladimir Putin had “discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit.” Many were alarmed, but as Putin explained in Russian, it would involve “setting up a group that would work out clear rules of engagement in cyberspace, as well as notions of what would and wouldn’t be permissible and a de-escalation mechanism.” Which, says Bershidsky, is actually a pretty smart idea. But Trump “appears to have misunderstood . . . In his mind, the working group turned into a joint ‘impenetrable unit’ to guard against ‘negative things’ ” — which isn’t what Putin meant. And “if some form of cooperation toward rule-making doesn’t take place, it will have been an opportunity lost in Trump’s poor translation of his own conversation.”

Baseball fan: How To Make All-Star Game Great Again

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, whose latest installment will be played Tuesday, “is a shadow of its former ratings self,” complains Jeff Greenfield at The Daily Beast. One reason why: Thanks to current rules, “the starting players — the ones voted into the lineup by the fans, the ones those voters want to see — are gone well before the middle of the game.” So he suggests allowing “free substitutions after the seventh inning,” even using players who “left after the fourth or fifth inning.” After all, says Greenfield, “it’s an exhibition game. Why not give the game’s most attractive selling points the chance to exhibit themselves as much as possible?”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann